Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque of Abu Dhabi - Guided tour

My first visit inside the Grand Mosque, on a brilliant and informative guided tour late one evening. Tours are free, and start at 10am each day, except on Fridays.


This mosque also holds the largest chandelier. There are seven imported chandeliers from Germany made from gold-plated copper and fitted with millions of Swarovski crystals. The largest chandelier has a 10 m (33 ft) diameter and a 15 m (49 ft) height.


This is where the Imam leads the worship ... Incredible fibre-optic decorated wall!


The carpet laid out on the vast expanse is the "World's Largest Carpet" made by Iran's Carpet Company and designed by Iranian artist Ali Khaliqi. This carpet measures 5,627 m2 (60,570 sq ft), and was made by around 1,200 weavers, 20 technicians, and 30 workers. The weight of this carpet is 47 tons – 35 tons of wool, and 12 tons of cotton. There are 2,268,000,000 knots within the carpet.


There are four minarets on the four corners of the mosque which rise about 115 m (377 ft) in height. There are 57 domes covering the outside yard and the main building as well. The domes are decorated with white Bianco marble from Pietrasanta, Italy and the interior decoration is made of white marble from Laas, Italy. The courtyard is paved with floral marble designs and measures about 17,000 m2 (180,000 sq ft).


Full moon means the mosque is lit in white ... and when a crescent moon is present, it is covered in a warm blue light.


Oooh .. a fly-by. These shots were all taken with bbG's Canon Powershot G10.


Iznik inspired tile motif? Goodnight Sheikh Zayed Mosque ...

2 comments:

hApPy HaPpY said...

I was there in 2007, went in the mosque without any guide. Works was not fully completed guess by now it is all done.

Julian Si said...

Hello hello,

It only opened to the public in late 2007, guess you must have been there in the last stages of construction!

The tour is really good ... You must visit when you are next back here.

hAPPy CHRiSTmAS!